FIVE
A delivery of fresh knotgrass seedlings called Professor Sprout away to her office, leaving Eve alone in the greenhouse. Usually, she wouldn't mind having a moment of alone time. Solitude at Hogwarts sometimes felt like a once in a blue moon occurrence, especially when one belonged to the house that valued close friendships before anything else. Hufflepuffs always traveled together as if finding oneself alone meant you had betrayed the spirit of Helga herself.
But for a girl that was currently living with an endless number of plagued afterthoughts and daydreams, Eve found no peace in her own company.
It also didn't help that she had quidditch practice at 7. And with the project Professor Sprout abandoned her with, Eve had no idea when she'd be able to escape the Herbology classroom.
The long wooden student worktable was currently holding around 40 potting beds, each awaiting soil, and a Fanged Geranium seed. The job wasn't necessarily technically difficult, but it certainly was more of a two-person job. Not to mention, Professor Sprout always emphasized the importance of traditional plant care, as in non-magically assisted plant care. As in, Professor Sprout would surely be disappointed if she found the planters filling themselves up with soil.
Eve had only managed to complete four pots when the greenhouse door creaked open. She sighed in relief, thinking her teacher had come back early from her office, but when she glanced up, it was not Professor Sprout coming through the doors.
"Hey, Neville," Eve greeted with a smile, taking in the fifth year Gryffindor who had definitely gotten taller over the summer.
Neville Longbottom was another of Professor Sprouts's enthusiastic Herbology students. Over the years, Eve had found herself sharing after class hours with him in the greenhouse, and in time, they soon became what she would consider school friends. They would swap their personal research notes with one another, recommend Herbology books during summer breaks, and last year, Eve had even helped him find the Gillyweed that Harry Potter used during the second task of the tournament.
It hadn't exactly been a keen plan for Eve to help Harry while he competed against Cedric, but she couldn't say no to him. Neville had always been such a gentle, tenderhearted friend to her, and on more than one occasion, she had told him how well he would have done in her own Hufflepuff house. But for reasons only perhaps the Sorting Hat knew, he stood before her in his crimson trimmed robes.
"Hey, Eve. Have a good summer?" Neville asked kindly, but she could see his mouth not form a full smile when he said it.
"Yeah, it was alright. What about you? Did you get taller?" Eve thought of the last question immediately, considering that it might steer the topic away from her completely. And it did when Neville nodded back with ardent assuredness.
"Yes, a whole three inches! My nan said it's her dragon buckwheat tea. She brews it for hours, even adds cinnamon. I can't remember if she puts the cinnamon on before or after she brews it, though. It's probably an important step with the dragon buckwheat, don't you think?" Neville said this all rather quickly, with an earnest, inquisitive look on his face. Eve didn't have an answer for him, though.
"Neville, I'm muggle-born, remember?" Eve answered, but her tone was light and teasingly, "The only tea my parents brew is from the shop."
The boy blushed in embarrassment but took a seat across from her, nonetheless.
"Have you come to help me?" Eve asked with a hopeful smile.
"Yes, Professor Sprout asked me yesterday after class. Said you were going to need help planting some new Fanged Geranium for her fourth years. Want me to start with the soil?"
Eve nodded, grabbing a spare pair of gloves from a side cabinet beside her and tossing them to the boy. Gloves on, the students went to work, Neville on soil duty, and Eve on seeding.
With this new addition to the project, Eve and Neville were done in half the time it would have taken Eve alone to do it. Surveying the completed planters in front of her, she nodded in approval.
"A couple weeks and these are going to become some nasty little buggers," Eve commented, her mind formulating the image of the small, red-flowered plant. Although quite pretty from far away, the flower's beauty would quickly change upon closer inspection of the sharp choppers inside the flower's bulbs. She imagined the look of horror that was almost entirely promised to ensue from the unsuspecting fourth years. This thought formed a small grin on her face.
"Do you think it's for Madam Pomfrey?" Neville asked, referring to the healing properties the violent little plant could be used for.
"If it is, it's quite a lot, don't you think?" Eve answered in genuine puzzlement. Was Madam Pomfrey planning on making enough Strength Potion and Skele-Gro for the entire school? After the events of the last couple of years, Eve wouldn't be too surprised.
Similar questions must have been playing on Neville's mind as well, and for a brief moment, the pair simply stared at their handy work in front of them. Perhaps both wondering what they had done it all really for.
Eve cleared her throat now.
"Neville, have you ever propagated magical plants before? You know, for your own use?" Eve asked this with slight hesitation, but she knew the boy wouldn't notice this. His eyes perked up immediately.
"Yes, of course. Nan and I have our own garden back at home. Professor Sprout has even let me take a few stems home for break to propagate myself," he said this with an enthusiastic smile, which gave Eve all the confidence she needed to continue.
"Yeah, I've meant to start my own garden at home too. Nothing too ferocious that might concern my parents, you know. Flutterby bush, Puffapod, maybe some Angel's Trumpet if I can keep the cat away from it," she pondered this with a feigned look of daydream.
Lying to Neville Longbottom, god. Maybe I am the first Hufflepuff bully.
"Well, you shouldn't have too much trouble with any of those," Neville considered carefully, "If you don't have seeds, propagation is just a minor extra step. Stem propagation is the easiest, but you can do leaves as well. Most magical plants grow a lot faster than regular plants, as you know. I have gotten roots to start growing in a week or so."
Eve nodded to all of this information, debating for a moment if she should go further in her questioning but decided against it. She could figure the rest out on her own without making Neville an inadvertent accomplice. This was all hypothetical, of course, because she hadn't decided if she would help the Weasley twins.
To help them would mean possibly getting herself into serious trouble. But to not help them would mean, well, what would it mean? She could easily ignore them and go about her time at Hogwarts. But the idea of helping them, to be of service to a bit of mischief, made her feel feverish, influential, and maybe a bit special.
To be clear, Eve was a Hufflepuff, but she certainly wasn't a saint. Although her considerate nature made her inclined to stay out of trouble, she didn't oppose a good time. She was raised by free-spirited artists, for Christ's sake. She had gone to French nude beaches by the time she was six years old. She even smoked pot once when she took Douglas to a muggle pub when he visited her family home two summers ago. She was her own version of rebellious, even if it was purely circumstantial and not particularly present on Hogwarts's grounds.
She thought about Fred and George, the boys that made rebellion their main circumstance. Misbehaving was their inherited disposition, jokes their main scale of temper.
Eve reflected on that afternoon that they had walked into the greenhouse. Before their entrance, she had been alone, lost in the melancholic thoughts that had plagued her all summer. The same thoughts that followed her onto the Hogwarts Express and into the very halls she walked through every day.
Eve thought about the looks of delight on their faces, the eagerness of their plans. To think, after everything that happened, they still looked for the humor in it all—the glimmers of joy that surface beneath the sorrow.
God, what it must be like to feel that every day.
"Neville, you've done enough. I can finish the rest."
The boy looked from his spot across the classroom, where he had stacked the last finished planter for tomorrow's students.
"Are you sure? I can wait, so you don't have to walk back alone," Neville replied, peeling the planting gloves from his hands and placing them in a neat stack on the worktable. Eve shook her head convincingly.
"No, don't worry about it. Most of the sweeping is done anyways. I just need to stay to grade a few more papers," Eve responded, leaning the broom she had been holding beside a nearby cabinet. When Neville hesitated, Eve continued.
"Go, please. It'll be dinner soon, I'll be fine," she smiled, giving him a little 'shoo' of her hands. The Gryffindor nodded, grabbing his bookbag and swinging it over his shoulders.
"I'll see you later, Eve."
Giving one last wave, Neville slipped out of the greenhouse. The minute the door shut behind him, Eve sprang into action.
Grabbing the closest pair of planting shears from a hook overhead, Eve started towards the back of the room where the student sample plants grew, making a beeline for the already familiar purple-flowered plant. Placing the shears carefully between stems, she began to cut.
One, two, three, maybe four? No, three was enough.
She cut each stem from opposing sides, making sure that, upon a brief glance, the Aconite would look its usual fullness.
Eve tore a piece of spare parchment from a work desk and wrapped the individual flowers carefully inside. She considered for a moment of putting the now enveloped flowers in her bookbag but instead placed them in the pocket of her robes, thinking it would be the safest from being flattened.
Permanently borrowed Aconite in hand, Eve was swift in grabbing her belongings and disappearing out the greenhouse door. The last thing she wanted was to run into a returning Professor Sprout, possibly entangling her in an innocent but underlyingly deceitful conversation.
Making her way back up the castle grounds, Eve was thorough with scanning the groups of students in the outside courtyard, hoping to catch a glimpse of two giant identical redheads. With luck on her side, she spotted them sitting on an open corridor ledge, giving what looked to be an animated display for a group of crimson-clad students. Approaching them, she got a snippet of their sales pitch.
"-And when you extend the ears wherever you'd like them to listen, you'll be able to hear even the most confidential of conversations. And I know you nosy lot have some spying to do, especially with the Umbridge running amuck."
Eve watched the group of Gryffindors laugh that the pair, and in the pause of the moment, she caught eyes with the twin that hadn't been talking. Eve nodded, and the boy grinned, turning to his brother and nudging him. The other Weasley brother caught sight of her and smiled, jumping to his feet.
"Now, if you children will excuse us, we have some important business matters to attend to."
The twins made their way to where Eve stood, the group of younger kids dispersing like a dismissed class lecture.
"It appears she has come to us, Fred," said George, the twin that had seemingly spotted her first.
"Hopefully with good news," Fred replied, looking at Eve with an amusingly anticipated look.
She gave her best professional smile.
"I'm in," she stated, causing the boys to shoot each other victory grins.
"And what is it Lady Hufflepuff is looking for in return?" Fred inquired in his best professional tone.
Eve shrugged.
"Bit of fun, that's all."
